Pictures & musings from Cheshire
Available light photography at Furness Vale, Derbyshire. Things seen whilst on a nighttime bike ride into the High Peak. Taking advantage of the fantastic light gathering capability of my Nikon 50mm f1.4 lens which is always a joy to work with in low light or available light situations, it is also Chrystal sharp!
A small study of the landscape adjacent to the A 5004 Macclesfield to Buxton road, a road that has become somewhat notorious for its high fatality rate – mostly amongst motor cyclists and fellow cyclists! This is part of the beautiful Peak District, or more specifically the ‘White Peak’, an extraordinary sedimentary landscape that was once the bed of a vast warm ocean. Parts of the area have been mined for more than a century for the high quality limestone and other sedimentary minerals. Thanks to the geology of this region and the many reservoirs that supply surrounding areas including Macclesfield, the local populations enjoy a healthy calcium rich (hard) water supply which is rare in most parts of the north and is considered to be one of the reasons for the healthy life span of people in the East Cheshire and Derbyshire area.
Main picture exif :-
These pictures are part of a collection of large canvas prints, and I am also experimenting with aluminium print finishes for some of my landscape pictures.
A reworking of a couple of images from the very cold and snowy winter of 2010, we had a rare arctic blast. I like these conditions for photography and especially monochrome work.
Main photo exif details :-
Large print on canvas. The open landscape of Wildboarclough near Macclesfield forest seen on one of my many cycling trips up to the top-end or Shutlingsloe. The weather was changing very dramatically here, it was one of those days when very heavy showers give way to brief periods of bright sun and patches of completely open sky, summer showers. These are conditions that I have been fortunate to capture in this location on more than one occasion, literally photographing sheets of rain falling only half or a quarter of mile away whilst standing in dry bright conditions.
An experiment that I have wanted to try for some time. A late night train (pendolino) passing through the Bollin Valley near Prestbury, Cheshire. I like the abstract effect in this image, the way it has come down to an exercise in dark tonality with the only significant luminosity being that of the train window streak and the signal light. I also like the way that this image is reminiscent (in a way) of the dramatic drawn illustrations in some of my classic childhood books about railways, such as the heroic activities of the night-mail footplate crew charging past signals in the dark.
A dramatic sky seen from the northwest coast of Britain. We often see stormy sky’s like this off our shores though this image has been slightly ‘dramatised’ with an HDR filter effect. I also wanted to add a texture layer to simulate the effect of the print on canvas. I loved the sunlight breaking through this bank of really very dense and quite menacing cloud.
Nikon D80, 50mm, 100iso, f2.8, 1/3000sec, August 8th 2013 – 18:50
